Fun Friday - Penny for your Thoughts

Hooray - it's Friday - again!

Yesterday was my best friend, Mary B's, 82 Birthday.  In honor of her historic trip to NYC in 2011 for the Red & White exhibit, I made this little quilt for her.

Here you can see it is constructed of flying geese instead of 1/2 square triangles.

I wrote directly on the back of the quilt instead of making a separate label.

Speaking of Red & White and Birthdays.  Tomorrow is my son  Andrews 23rd Birthday.

I'm making him a red & white cake (red velvet, his favorite).

Pennies - my 2 collections:

I have been collecting wheat back pennies for years.  My mother also collected them so I have always thought of them as special.

I have 35 of them and the 2 oldest are from 1920.  I keep them in this little suitcase that my husband gave me years ago.  He just gave me one last week.  It had been a long time since I've added to this collection.

The other collection is pressed pennies.  Below is the one that started it all.  In 1992 I got this penny in Seattle at Ye Old Curiosity Shop.  They had an actual mummy and Andrew being just a little kid was mesmerized by it and called it "The Icky Man".  We bought a pressed penny and a post card of him.

I have 122 pressed pennies which I've collected from many different places.  Here are my pennies from Disney World and Disney Land, 60 in all.

Here are the other ones.  I display them in this little Victorian calling card dish.  I love mixing things irreverantly like this.

There is an official website to organize and purchase pennies here.  I just get them when I can.  It is very fun to go through them once in a while.

Have a FUN Friday everyone and a great weekend.

Housework!

Happy Wednesday!

I've been busy this week doing housework.  The deep exhaustive spring kind.  Not only am I cleaning; I'm cleaning out.  Do you ever get in that mood where literally nothing in your house is safe from the garbage man or the good will?

I was looking at this little log cabin quit top and thought I'd share it today.  It is very small, the blocks are only 2 1/4 inches, making the little quilt top only 6 1/2 inches square.

Here is how I did it.  I used 1/4" graph paper to paper piece it.  As you can see, the paper is still on, and the binding is glued.  Wow, was I lazy at the time or what?  I hang it in the sewing room.

With coco at school today, I decided to work on Hanna's first year college quilt, the red and white house quilt.

Working from my sketch, today I'm inking the names of the homes and schools in Hanna life from birth through today.  Houses have one chimney and schools have two.

I made a little paper template to practice the spacing on.

I prepped the backing by ironing freezer paper to stabilize it.

A word about perfection:  Piffle!!
This is my handwriting.  It is not perfect, I am not perfect, life is not perfect, but it is mine, so on the quilt it goes.

Nearing the end of the 12 blocks, I realized something was wrong.  I had a house left instead of a school......way back on the first block I inked the wrong thing - snap!

Time for a tear down (actually just a new chimney section).

Quick tip of the day:  Use a sticky roller to remove the threads after you un-sew, otherwise known as ripping out.

Sure is quiet in bloglandia.  What's everyone up to?  Catching up on Mad Men and the Killing maybe?

Fun For Friday - Mega Fun

Happy Friday!

This week I changed my snowman quilt in the hall for this fun free pieced house quilt I made in 2005.

I bought Mega ball lottery tickets on Tuesday - that was fun.  I didn't win.

I made Ba-Hanna bread to send to my daughter at college.  Hanna loves banana bread, so I've renamed it in her honor at our house.

We've tried a lot of recipes but this one is our new favorite.  It's from All Recipes.com (which has a wonderful iPad app) click here for recipe.  I decided to make 2 loaves.  I use 2 bowls to keep things straight.

I think the secret is the fact that the bananas are sliced, not mashed and it also has sour cream - delicious!

Since I was making 2 loaves, I decided to try one with Splenda baking blend for me.  It is a blend of sugar and sweetener.  The batter looks the same.

But wait; it didn't bake the same.

After a few minutes of cooling, I had a big sink hole in my loaf.

I carved around it and I have to say that it tastes great.  I lost quite a bit of loaf in the middle, but the rest was good.

It was fun to buy flowers for a vase that I won at the White Elephant exchange at the retreat.  It was my friend Margarets, which makes even more special to me.

For mega fun, I bought another set of mega lottery tickets for tonights drawing.  You have to play to win, right?

Have a fun weekend everyone!

A Finish and A Start

Hooray, I finished my Olympic Star.  I started this in the Summer of 2008 to commemorate the Olympic Games in Beijing.  I thought the date worthy of commemorating.

here is a close up of some of the hand quilting

The back; need to make a label!

The quilting.  Almost looks like a white work quilt from the back.

I had a great time playing with my red and white fabric on the retreat.

Here I am playing with my new strip stick that I purchased at the Lancaster Quilt show.  You can read more about it and see a demo by clicking here.  It's called a strip stick and it works great and it's made by the nicest couple.  I highly endorse it.

So, I finally started Hanna's first Miami of Ohio Red and White quilt.

I drafted the house in 2 sizes, 9" and 10" finished.  I decided on the 9" house block.  I'm using 1 and 2 chimney versions.

Under construction.  I finished one block to make sure that the paper pieced roof section would fit the other strip pieced section.  Hooray, it works!

And here is an example of sewing it to the wrong side resulting in a backwards roof - doh!  I used it to rough cut the pieces for the others.

And I guess that the old adage is true; the early bird does get the worm....or a quiet sewing room.  This was our work room. We had about 30 women on the retreat and it was so FUN.

Hope you all had a great weekend too!

Fun For Friday - Playing in the Dirt

My mother used to say "it's a beautiful day.  Go outside and play!"  so I did.

I love pansies and every year I make an effort to get some planted and potted up.  I do this before I start the yard clean up.  I find doing a little beautification first, helps with the later.

Here is a new pot I got at Home Depot.  I really looks copper from a distance.

I use these window box liners on my stone walls by the back gate.  Look at coco waiting patiently for me, what a good pup.

All yellow pot - I love these mini daffodils.

I think blue pansies are my favorite.

Here is a redo that started last fall.  I had Andrew pull out the ground cover that was in this bed.   I intend to plant it with annuals.  It is a tough spot, dry and shady.

before:

After.  I suppose I should endeavor to take the photo from the same spot, for maximum effect.  As my dear friend Mary B. would say "that's a nice improvement".

I even played with my wagon, a real back saver.

The herb garden loved the mild winter.

I was so delighted to see this primrose that Pauline gave me last spring.  "Hello gorgeous."

I'm off to a guild quilting retreat this weekend on the Delaware River at the Shawnee Inn.

I'll be working on 2 red and white projects (among other things),  which prompted this last bit of fun.  I turned these:

Into these:

I think these are great retreat treats for the following reasons:
60 calories
zero fat
no sticky fingers
hard crunchy outside
sweet chewy inside
"How many licks does it take to reach the center of a totsie roll pop? The world may never know".

And finally, I had Mr. Random Number Generator choose a number for the Lancaster CD giveaway at it is:
#31 which is Regan of Floating on a Quilted Cloud.
Congrats.  Send me your address and I'll mail it out first thing Monday.

Whatever you find yourself doing this weekend I hope you make it FUN!